43

Take the examples:

  1. "One in ten children are dyslexic."

  2. "One in ten children is dyslexic."

  3. "One in ten children has dyslexia."

  4. "One in ten children have dyslexia."

The "one" is singular so 2 and 3 should be correct. But the "one in ten" is a fraction" so 1 and 4 should be correct. And yet I think I usually say 1 and 3. Which is/are correct?!

herisson
  • 81,803
MSpeed
  • 1,223

10 Answers10

20

Both are commonly used and acceptable.

There are various common cases where a superficially singular subject can or indeed must be associated with a plural verb:

The government [are/is] considering the proposal.

A lot of these matters [have/*has] been dealt with.

The majority [are/??is] pleased with the outcome.

A half of all pensioners [are/??is] living below the poverty line.

In the case you mention, a plural verb is probably at least equally common nowadays as a singular, though historically a singular verb appears to have been more common (e.g. do some comparisons on Google NGram: the singular verb appears to have undergone a downward trend over the last couple of centuries).

You will find prescriptivists bemoaning the apparent contradiction of a singular noun accompanied by a plural verb. But there's really no God-given reason to expect the verb to agree necessarily with the head noun and actual data clearly contradicts this assumption. As is usually the case, the prescriptivists are inventing a problem because their grammatical model is inadequate.

Community
  • 1
Neil Coffey
  • 19,622
  • 4
    "A half of all" sounds odd to me. I'd only ever say "Half of all", and it would take a plural verb. – Marthaª Apr 17 '12 at 15:15
  • 7
    The government is, A lot of these matters have, The majority are (unless you're talking about a political group, which is treated as singular "The majority is trying to persuade the minority as to the blah blah blah), A half of all pensioners are. – zzzzBov Apr 17 '12 at 15:26
  • 5
    @zzzzBov That sounds like you are touching on a British-ism: "IBM are..." (British) vs "IBM is..." (American) and so forth. To me, an American, the former sounds very strange. – Mei Apr 17 '12 at 16:48
  • 1
    I'm a UK speaker. There could well be a slight UK/US difference, but with company names I see overall both singular and plural in both UK and US usage. @zzzBow, in UK usage, it's common to say "The government are..." -- maybe this is also a US/UK difference? – Neil Coffey Apr 17 '12 at 17:09
  • 1
    "a half of all" gets 5.5 million hits on Google. OK, that's a crude judgement, but high enough to be an indicator. I guess again it's a dialectal/ideolectal preference? – Neil Coffey Apr 17 '12 at 17:11
  • 3
    +1 for Both are commonly used and acceptable in respect of one in ten, but I would point out that both Brits and Americans still favour the singular there (only just, in the case of Brits over recent decades). I think with Brits it's the same as companies & such - we just use the plurality most appropriate to the semantic context, where Americans are more rigid about observing that it's *one in ten, or a single company*. – FumbleFingers Apr 17 '12 at 18:09
  • 5
    I'm sorry, I'm really not seeing this. "in ten children" is a prepositional phrase. "Children" is the object of the preposition. "One" is the subject. "One" is, rather obviously, singular. What am I missing here...? – Adam Robinson Apr 17 '12 at 19:06
  • It depends on whether you intend to the subject (object?) as a number of individuals or as an individual group. – AncientSwordRage Apr 17 '12 at 20:02
  • 1
    Adam -- what you're missing is that the verb is not singular. You've invented an assumed reason why you think it ought to be. But it turns out that it is not. Therefore, your assumption is wrong. – Neil Coffey Apr 17 '12 at 22:58
  • 2
    The mismatch between actual and perceived count is called "concordanza a senso" in Italian (it means: "matching by meaning"). I think it's a useful concept to keep in mind: it doesn't matter what the subject is grammatically, it matters whether it's perceived as singular or plural when heard/read. Btw also in Italian both uses are accepted, with some particular instances sounding more natural than others. – UncleZeiv Apr 18 '12 at 10:56
  • 7
    @AdamRobinson, as the OP pointed out, [one] [in ten children] is not the only reasonable way to parse this sentence; [one in ten] [children] is also a reasonable parse (and IMO, the latter is much more reasonable, since what the phrase really means is "10% of children"). – Ben Lee Apr 20 '12 at 21:32
  • @NeilCoffey, definitely +1 for the answer. And I want to quote you on that last line: "the prescriptivists are inventing a problem because their grammatical model is inadequate"; that sums up the problem with pedantic prescriptivism better than I've seen anywhere else. – Ben Lee Apr 20 '12 at 21:33
  • -1, sorry. There are apparently dialects where both are acceptable, but it's foolish to suggest that speakers of other dialects must be "prescriptivists [...] inventing a problem." – ruakh Mar 14 '14 at 00:20
  • 1
    @BenLee: In many singular/plural arguments, I would posit that not only are the singular and plural forms valid, but they have slightly different meanings. Saying "One in ten X is Y" would imply that out of each group of ten X, one is Y. Saying "One in ten X are Y" would imply that the number who are Y is about 1/10 of the total number of X, but would not imply anything a uniform distribution. Different meanings, either of which could be appropriate in any particular context. – supercat May 01 '14 at 06:36
  • 1
    @supercat, good observation! I completely agree with that. – Ben Lee May 01 '14 at 16:01
17

In data analyzed for the ‘Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English’ on constructions with one in or one out of followed by a number, plural agreement predominated. ‘The Cambridge Grammar of English Usage’, which quotes this finding, comments that ‘For most writers the choice depends on whether you’re thinking of a single case or a general principle.’

Barrie England
  • 140,205
12

"One in ten children" may be a fraction, but you are still talking about one child, even as a generality. Out of group of ten children at random, you are considering just one. The singular is/has is appropriate.

If you were to say "10% of children"or "a tenth of all children", then you are talking about a general group of children and the plural are/have is appropriate.

Andrew Leach
  • 101,901
  • 12
    I'm afraid language doesn't care about logic like that. (As you can see from Neil's examples, and from your very own "a tenth of all children" where it's painfully obvious that a tenth is actually singular, yet you admit that plural is appropriate.) "One in ten" is not to be confused with "one in ten somethings" or "one something in ten". They can, and do, behave differently. – RegDwigнt Apr 17 '12 at 14:59
  • @RegDwightѬſ道 Neil's answer agrees with mine, and I've explained my logic. To make it clearer, I've edited the first four words. – Andrew Leach Apr 17 '12 at 15:44
  • The grammatical (though not mathematical) equivalent of "one in ten" when using percentages is "one per cent." – J. Win. Apr 17 '12 at 17:13
  • 6
    For what it's worth, when you say "one in ten children" I would posit that you are usually talking about "ten per cent of children", not "one specific child out of a specific group of ten". (If you say e.g. "one out of the ten children surveyed", then that's different.) But of course, the syntax of the language doesn't care whether or not you can come up for a rationalisation in any case. – Neil Coffey Apr 17 '12 at 18:18
  • 1
    Two in twenty are [foo]. How should one in ten be any different? – fluffy Apr 17 '12 at 18:30
  • @fluffy: At the risk of sounding snarky, it's different because you've selected different words. Language and grammar quite often differ in cases where different words are used... – Adam Robinson Apr 17 '12 at 19:10
  • @fluffy Because if you say "two", you are referring to multiple objects, so are would be correct. If you say "one", you're talking about singular, so is would be correct. – Rachel Apr 17 '12 at 19:33
  • How about "zero children are?" Zero is plural, only because it is other than singular. – Kaz Apr 17 '12 at 21:21
  • 1
    @AdamRobinson But the thing isn't modifying the word "one," it's modifying the phrase "one in ten," which is potentially plural. – fluffy Apr 17 '12 at 23:02
  • 1
    @Rachel But "one in ten" is also referring to multiple objects. – fluffy Apr 17 '12 at 23:02
  • 1
    Rachel -- it's the "correct" if you for some reason assume there's some inherent reason why (a) in "one in ten" you're actually referring to something to a single entity [whereas as we've argued, usually you're actually referring to multiple entities or a proportion of some unknown number], and (b) that what is in real life a single entity must always be represented by a grammatical singular. There's little basis for either of these assumptions. – Neil Coffey Apr 17 '12 at 23:02
  • If you follow the line of logic that a singular entity for some reason must always be represented by a syntactic singular, then you would demand that a 'present' tense always represent something happening precisely in the present, or that the French noun "personne" must be masculine when it refers to a male person etc... you could probably end up arguing yourself into thinking practically any utterance is "incorrect" for some spurious reason if you take this "logic" to its extreme. – Neil Coffey Apr 17 '12 at 23:05
  • 3
    Or look at it another way: labels like "singular", "present", "masculine" etc are just rough arbitrary labels invented by human beings. Just because we choose to arbitrarily label something as "singular", "accusative", "future" etc doesn't mean that the language will for some reason magically re-configure itself to match our arbitrary label-- it could just be that our label is inaccurate. – Neil Coffey Apr 17 '12 at 23:08
  • 1
    I have ten apples, nine are green and one is red. My friend also has 10 apples, likewise, for every ten apples she has, one is red ==> "One out of (every) ten apples are red" ==> One in ten apples are red; because we know there is more than one red apple. Which suggests that the plural verb makes more logical sense. And the funny thing is, I upvoted your answer too. – Mari-Lou A Sep 12 '13 at 06:12
10

I think an alternative is:

One child in ten is dyslexic.

versus

One child in ten are dyslexic.

which seems to be incorrect. This puts the emphasis on the fact that there is one child, which is singular, that makes the verb be is rather than are.

FryGuy
  • 209
3

I searched the New York Times's database for the phrase "one in ten" (note, the numbers are written as words), excluding modal and regular verbs used in the past tense that do not differentiate between singular and plural subjects, I did not find the phrase used with a plural verb until after 2010.

  1. ONE IN TEN A PATIENT.; Dr. Briggs Tells Mental Trouble Increase in Massachusetts.
    BOSTON, Nov. 9.--One person in every twenty who dies in Massachusetts dies in a State institution, and one in every ten, at some time or another, enters an insane or feeble-minded hospital,… [November 10, 1921]

  2. FLORIDA REFUGEES NOW ARRIVING HERE
    “Every building in Fort Lauderdale is damaged,” Pope said, “and a hasty survey leads me to believe that not more than one in ten has been left standing. Only the most substantial houses stood up. Most houses are wrecks and many others have lost their roofs.
    [September 22, 1926]

  3. ONE IN TEN OF MANKIND IS NOW A RADIO LISTENER
    GENEVA. THE world's radio listeners now number 200,000,000, or one in ten of mankind, according to an estimate in Radiodiffusion, … [December 01, 1935]

  4. 1940 CENSUS FOUND ONE IN TEN JOBLESS; 5,110,000 Idle Out of Labor Force of 52,840,000 -- Women Gain Among 'New Workers'
    WASHINGTON, Jan. 5 -- One out of every ten workers of a total labor force of 52,840,000 in the United States was unemployed when the census was taken on March 30. About one out of every twenty of those working was reported to be employed by the Federal Government… [January 06, 1941]

  5. HEALTH PLAN HELD VAGUE TO DOCTORS; Ewing Says Not One in Ten Knows What President's Program Proposes
    WASHINGTON, Jan. 26—Oscar R. Ewing, Federal Security Administrator, said today President Truman's health insurance plan was basically different from the British system, which he recently studied at first-hand. [JAN. 27, 1950]

  6. One in Ten Shoppers Is a Shoplifter
    The team reported that one of every 10 of the shoppers walked out again with merchandise she did not pay for. (Overwhelmingly, shoplifters are she's.) [MARCH 15, 1970]

  7. How Will Europe Pay for Its Oil?
    Perhaps even more than the United States, the economy of Europe is powered by the automobile. One in ten jobs is dependent, directly or indirectly, on the health of this industry. Auto sales are off sharply–there was a slump of about 50 per cent in Germany in December–and manufacturers in one country… [January 20, 1974]

  8. Put More Teeth in Parole
    In theory, a prisoner released on parole is closely supervised and will be thrown back in prison if he violates the conditions of parole. But the public and many ex-cons regard supervision of parolees with cynicism. Parole officers' caseloads are heavy; supervision degenerates over time. Parolees perceive release as freedom, not as supervised release. One in ten absconds. [November 17, 1987]

  9. A LOWLY FISH GOES UPSCALE
    THE NEXT TIME YOU SIT DOWN TO A SEAFOOD dinner consider this: The chances are one in ten that what's in front of you was raised on a farm. According to the Fisheries Institute, aquaculture accounts for nearly all of the rainbow trout sold commercially in this country. [ December 4, 1988]

Examples, where a plural verb is (rarely) used.

  1. Is Poverty a Kind of Robbery?
    …in 2011 low food security was a problem for just under one in eight whites — a matter of concern but for many white voters, a virtually invisible issue. Very low food security affects the lives of only one in 24 whites.
    For African Americans, low food security is a problem affecting one in four, and one in ten experience very low food security. [SEPTEMBER 16, 2012 11:57 PM]

  2. MacArthur Foundation Picks Eight Projects That Could Change the World
    “For the one in ten Americans who lack health insurance and need specialty care, the options are limited: pay out of pocket or delay treatment,” the foundation said.
    [FEB. 15, 2017]

Mari-Lou A
  • 91,183
  • Different newspapers may have different style guides. From The Guardian: One in 10 crimes recorded by police are domestic abuse cases. – Peter Shor Nov 17 '17 at 13:21
  • @PeterShor it took me a couple of hours searching through the NYT archives, and even finding that last example was more of a fluke. I can't go searching through every newspaper :) I'm sure nowadays the plural verb is often used in constructions such as "one in twenty" etc., I was interested in seeing whether a reputable American newspaper, such as NYT, followed this trend (and I also have a paid subscription). – Mari-Lou A Nov 17 '17 at 13:22
  • Of course you can't search every newspaper. I'm trying to point out that The New York Times (or any one newspaper) is not a typical sample of educated American prose – newspapers generally have style guides which the writers and copyeditors try to conform to, and I wouldn't be surprised if the NYT style guide addresses this question. – Peter Shor Nov 17 '17 at 13:24
0

User F.E. posted some relevant information in the comments to a question about a similar dilemma between two patterns of subject-verb agreement:

  1. Only one out of three respondents (29%) thinks otherwise.
  2. Only one out of three respondents (29%) think otherwise.

I wanted to reproduce these comments here to increase their visibility.

  • First of all, the subject isn't singular. The subject is a NP that has a plural head [...] both #1 and #2 versions are considered to be acceptable in today's standard English (according to the 2002 H&P's CGEL). – F.E. Jul 2 '15 at 18:12 




  • Basically the answer is this: Your sentence involves a proportional construction. Because the head ("respondents") of your subject is plural, that allows the plural verb ("think"); but due to the presence of "one", the optional singular override is also allowed which allows the singular verb ("thinks"). So, both plural and singular verbs are acceptable in your example sentence.

    – F.E. Jul 2 '15 at 19:59

This explanation seems to apply equally to "One in ten children are dyslexic" vs. "One in ten children is dyslexic."

F.E. also left similar comments beneath the question "one in four kids": has or have? that have a few more details:

  • Both versions are acceptable and are standard English. For more info, there's the 2002 reference grammar by Huddleston and Pullum et al., The Cambridge Grammar of the English Language (CGEL), page 504, in the section on proportional constructions, example [15.iii] "One in a hundred students takes/take drugs."

    – F.E. Feb 19 '15 at 20:49

  • Let me give you a brief explanation on your example. "Did you know [ (that) 1 in 4 kids has/have an undetected vision problem] ?" has a subordinate clause ("[ (that) 1 in 4 kids … problem]") and the subject of that subordinate clause is the noun phrase "one in four kids". The subject is plural in number due to the plural head "kids" and that supports a plural verb ("have"), but the singular "one" within the subject allows the optional singular override ("has").

    – F.E. Feb 19 '15 at 21:32

herisson
  • 81,803
0

I think it actually depends on the first number. If it is more than 1, then answers 1 and 4 should be used. If only one member of the set may fulfil the condition then 2 and 3.

Mel Padden
  • 267
  • 2
  • 6
-3

is

Without doubt it is is.

compare:

One tenth of the students are ...

One in ten students is ...

[Edit] Specific case of one tenth of a set of ten students is an anomaly. (!)

Community
  • 1
Kris
  • 37,386
  • 15
    Without a doubt, you should provide some support for your answer. – Kit Z. Fox Apr 17 '12 at 14:36
  • The enthusiastic down voters may kindly offer their valuable comments now.

    Comments is no place for a debate, though.

     – Kris Apr 17 '12 at 16:05
  • @Kris: Were i to downvote, it'd be because you're way overstating when you say "without doubt". Maybe there's no doubt on your part, but there obviously are people who disagree with you. Yet you offer nothing to support your answer -- in fact, your example outright contradicts itself. Grammatically, "tenth" is the subject in the first example...there's one of them, so it should be singular, right? If not, then why not in the second sentence? – cHao Apr 17 '12 at 20:25
  • 2
    You are all missing the ironic humor in Kris's response! One tenth is also a single object. One tenth of a pizza is a narrow slice. – Kaz Apr 17 '12 at 21:05
  • 2
    @Kaz: Yeah, i missed the joke. Silly me, expecting humor to be funny. :) – cHao Apr 17 '12 at 21:13
  • Pl also see the edit. Tx for the one-tenth pizza. – Kris Apr 17 '12 at 21:15
  • "one tenth" and "one in ten" function identically as quantifiers. If "one in ten" students is (without a doubt) then "one tenth" also is, without a doubt. This is so obvious, I thought it must be a joke. If anything, "one tenth" makes more of a demand to be treated as a singular. – Kaz Apr 17 '12 at 21:19
  • 2
    I tried using 'A tenth' in place of 'One tenth', and the plural sounded better. But the phrase 'One in ten students' sounds like a contraction of 'One student in every ten students', and seems like I'm talking about the student I had in mind (out of a hypothetical ten). I therefore favour the singular here. This is my own preference--not a rule. Take care of the sense, and the sounds will take care of themselves (as one in ten commenters are likely to say). – Steve Powell Apr 18 '12 at 12:00
-3

definitely 1 in 10 is, because you're assuming the subject is singluar.

E.G.

one in ten entities is... would make sense

one in ten entities are... would not make sense

because this would indicate that the single entity you are singling out is plural.

gfppaste
  • 107
-3

"are" is better.

One in ten, implies, one x in every ten from a collection of x'es greater than 10.

So if you have fifty pupils in a class and one in ten cannot spell, Then there are 5 pupils who cannot spell.

If a class always consisted of ten pupils then you would say "one pupil cannot spell" as the "one in ten" construct would be superfluous.

James Anderson
  • 1,033
  • 1
    "One in ten cannot spell". "Five students out of fifty cannot spell" There is no singular or plural version of "can" so your example is moot (this ought to explain the down-votes). – Mari-Lou A Sep 12 '13 at 06:25